Bambang $ Hadi

Whether you’re a heavy email marketer or thinking about using email to market to prospects and customers, there are plenty of issues to consider.

Top of the list is email deliverability: how many e-mails actually make it to the inbox.  In a recent poll conducted by Infusion Software, 58% of email marketers indicated they had no idea what their email deliv- ery rates were.  More disturbing, of the responders that indicated they knew what their rate was, only
23% were using a delivery tracking tool to actually monitor and verify delivery rates. The rest were basing deliverability rates on ‘guessing’, ‘prospect/ customer feedback’, or ‘testing with their personal email address’. Yikes!

Unfortunately, the challenge doesn’t stop with de- liverability.  Other issues plague email marketers such as anti-SPAM compliance, single & double-opt in methods, text vs. HTML formats, frequency of sending emails, white listing, black lists, maintain- ing relationships with ISPs, and content.

In order to increase your success as an email mar-
keter and not get tagged as a “Spammer”, here are 10 rounds you should fight through:

Round 1: Send Highly Relevant and Valuable Emails

As the inbox gets more crowded with SPAM, your users are looking to your email to provide them with relevant content - the content they expected when subscribing in the first place. The age of email blasting is over. Begin capturing data on
your subscribers via surveys or during sign-up. Over time you will be able to send more relevant content, which lessens the chance that your email will be interpreted as SPAM
by your subscribers.  Every email should include some- thing of value to the recipient. Remember that something of value to you (like making the sale) may not be valuable to your subscribers.

Round 2: Ask To Be Placed In Your Subscriber’s Address Book Or Safe Senders List

Many email marketers spend plenty of time build- ing relationships with ISPs and putting things in place so that their emails make it to the Inbox.
Unfortunately, the work is often in vain because the final gateway, the e-mail client (Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.), has built-in filtering and can put the kibosh on your email.  To jump through this final hurdle, it’s important to get your email recipi- ents to add your email address or sending domain
to their address book or ‘safe senders’ list.

Round 3: Set Frequency And Content Expectations

Did you promise valuable, informational content,
but continue to send only product pitches? Did you promise a monthly newsletter, but send weekly promotions? Nothing can trigger subscriber dis- satisfaction like continued emails that do not meet subscriber expectations in terms of content or frequency. A recent study shows that 65% of men and 56% of women define spam as “email from
a company that I have done business with that comes too often.”  Wow!

Round 4: Avoid ‘Spammy’ Words And Phrases

Systematically scanning email subject lines and body content (also called content filtering) is the most widely used filtering method among ISPs.

Avoid overly promotional words and phrases, multiple exclamation points, all capital letters and other text often used by spammers. Use content checkers to test emails against popular spam filters.

Round 5: Segmentation And Personalization

Segmentation and personalization are likely the most underutilized keys to email marketing success. Your emails are competing for attention with an increasing number of messages in your sub- scribers’ inboxes. The emails that resonate most, through personalized subject lines, offers, articles, products showcased and follow-up emails based
on recipient activity, will be the clear winners. It is crucial that you begin this process, even if it is simply personalizing the content of the subject line or sending modified emails to several different seg- ments of your list. Once the process is started, you can then work toward the promised land of dynam- ic content and lifecycle-based messaging.

Round 6: Optimize The Beginning of The Relationship

Focus special attention on the beginning of the
email relationship, because the most significant de- cline in email performance comes two months after recipients opt in. Engage your new subscribers im- mediately with an organized program that includes a welcome message sent out upon confirmation, followed by the current newsletter or promotion, and emails offering a set of best-of newsletter arti- cles or an email-exclusive offer just for newcomers. Lastly, make sure you manage subscribers’ expec- tations from the start by adequately explaining the email program’s value proposition, frequency, type of content and privacy policies.

Round 7: Get And Confirm Permission

Receiving permission from your subscribers is the crux of a successful email-marketing program. Capturing an opt-in and confirming it with a follow- up email is the best practice to ensure you only add recipients that want your email.  The practice of confirming an opt-in is called “double opt-in” and is the format the entire email industry is adopt- ing… and in many cases, requiring.

Round 8: Focus On Metrics That Matter

What metrics matter most?  How many e-mails were sent?  Deliverability rate?  Open rate? Click rate?  How about revenue per email?  Think long and hard about what metric really matters – then focus on that metric like crazy to improve results!

Round 9: Promptly Remove Unsubscribers And Respond To Complaints

As an email marketer, you are responsible for promptly handling unsubscribe requests.  If your email system doesn’t handle unsubscribe requests automatically, set a process in place to ensure speedy removal.  You should also enable your subscribers to update their preferences and email address without having to jump through a series of hoops.  Finally, make sure you have resources in place to manage email replies… which means you need to use a valid ‘from’ address.

Round 10: Test, Test, Test

An email strategy that worked for you or for a competitor six months ago might not work today. Companies need to test variables continuously including format, design, copy style, calls to ac- tion, subject lines, personalization, segmentation,
content, days/times to send, etc.  Start with simple A/B split tests, and repeat the test at least a few times to verify results.

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